Mother | AdventAI

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Jun 6, 1878

Mother.

No earthly name so dear as mother; and yet how few of the young learn to love and reverence their best earthly friend until separated from her, or her departure draws near. How many look back upon their childhood with tears and regrets for their heedlessness and disregard of a mother's counsel.

A promising young minister of the gospel speaks with touching pathos of the influence of a mother's prayers in turning his feet unto the testimonies of the Lord. He states that late one evening, in the city of B., he returned from the theatre to his home. In going to his room he had to pass his mother's chamber. Her door was open, and looking in as he passed, he saw her kneeling in prayer. On entering his room, which was next to her chamber, he sat quietly for a few moments, when he heard her utter softly and tenderly the words, "My boy! Oh my boy! Save him!"

The idea that his mother was agonizing in prayer for her wayward boy, near the midnight hour, deeply affected him. As he listened to her tender pleadings for him, he firmly resolved before he slept that night that he would never go to the theatre again; that he would not, like a foolish son, be a heaviness unto his mother, but that he would try to comfort and bless her. From that night he kept his promise. Soon after, that mother wept with joy in witnessing his reception as a sincere penitent into the church of Christ; and a few weeks ago, wasted by disease and very feeble, she was carried to the same church, where she witnessed his ordination as a minister of the blessed gospel.

Some parent who may read these lines may have a prodigal child for whom he has been praying a long time. Faint not, child of God. Those prayers have not been in vain. They are ringing in heaven, and an answer, though long delayed, may come very soon. Some son may read this sketch who has a pious mother pleading in prayer for him daily. I beseech you, no longer consent to be a heaviness to your precious mother.

One of America's popular writers once said: "Oh, that I could call back, just for one day, my mother from the grave, that I might bow at her feet and ask pardon for the cruel wrongs I inflicted by my waywardness on her loving heart!" It may be, reader, that your dear mother is bending with the weight of years or infirmities to the grave. Deny her not, before she leaves you, the joy and consolation of seeing her prodigal child repenting and coming to Jesus.

Our mother walks with our infancy, our youth and mature age, ever sheltering us with her blessed prayers. It is her hand that directs in childhood. Through her patient, persevering efforts, are instilled in our minds lessons that follow in after years. Cuvier, it is said, attributed to his mother all the pleasure of his studies and glory of his discoveries. "I used to draw under her superintendence, and read

aloud books of history and general literature. It is thus that she developed in me that love of reading and that curiosity for all things which were the spring of my life." Lamertine, over whose cradle was shed the light of a tender mother's love, under her tuition developed that genius (a spark of which is said to be implanted in every soul) until it resembles incense, the perfumes of which are diffused over the earth but which burns only for heaven.

It has been said, "Good teachers make good scholars, but it is only mothers that form men." Rather should it be said: It is only mothers (or women with mother-hearts) who possess the power of inspiring that love of virtue and knowledge which, when once established in the soul, enables a man to "mold his own material, quairy his own nature, and make his own character" what it should be; for this is a work that no one can do for him.